LUND, Sweden (IDN) – The war in Syria has dropped out of the news, like almost everything else, in a time when the Coronavirus seems to dominate all discourse and reporting. But the regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to strangle its own country. The Russians continue to bomb on his behalf, terrifying civilians and hospitals. The Americans work semi-clandestinely to undermine both the regime and its Russian backers.

]]>jonatpower@aol.com (Jonathan Power)OPINIONTue, 12 May 2020 20:00:16 +0200America Should Not Be Number One Because It's A Spent Starhttps://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/syndication/individual-journalists/3498-america-should-not-be-number-one-because-it-s-a-spent-star
https://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/syndication/individual-journalists/3498-america-should-not-be-number-one-because-it-s-a-spent-star

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

The US needs first and foremost to look after itself-– its often counterproductive foreign policy, its poverty, its third rate health services, its misdistribution of income, to save the economy and to save those most hurt by the Coronavirus crisis.

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It might seem that the world is going to pot in a hand-basket. Not quite true. There are ways out. Asia has shown how to deal with the Coronavirus and how to stay politically stable. Europe, except for wise Sweden, has muddled along, following belatedly the conventional wisdom of its scientific community. As for the United States, President Donald Trump has made a fool of himself and his country, ending up with the highest death rate in the world.

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE, Washington (IDN) -– It was intended to be a Machiavellian move, but the decision by Benny Gantz, leader of Israel’s Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) coalition, to join a Benjamin Netanyahu-led government is likely to destabilize the political fabric of Israeli society for years to come.

In a surprising move, Gantz has entered into precarious political compromises, whereby he would become the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), as a prelude to the formation of a national unity government which will include the ruling Likud party and Blue and White.

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Joseph Biden for president! His main rival for the Democratic Party's nomination, Bernie Sanders, endorsed him on April 13. If the world could vote, the overwhelming majority would vote for Biden, despite some misgivings. My reservations would be on his foreign policy. Like President Barack Obama he would be good on domestic policy but mistaken on much of his foreign policy.

Obama made Biden responsible for dealing with the Ukraine crisis where he fashioned an anti-Russian policy based on little evidence that this was fair to the facts. He writes now of the need to "counter Russian aggression" and that "we must impose real costs on Russia for its violations of international norms".

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – The struggle for the Donbass region in the eastern and southern Ukraine goes on, seemingly never endingly. It’s now six years since dissident militias threw off the yoke of the central government in Kiev and declared their de-facto independence.

They were supported by Russian troops which at first president Vladimir Putin denied and then later admitted. It was the Russians who supplied the missile launcher that accidentally shot down a Malaysian airlines passenger jet. Altogether 17,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in this conflict.

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – When it comes to war the world does move on for the better. Right now there are no interstate wars. The longest running civil war of our era, in the Sudan, is over. The second longest, in Afghanistan and Syria, are winding down. Only one country in the world actually threatens the use of nuclear weapons – North Korea – but its arsenal and its credibility on the issue are both small.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Belem is the Brazilian city at the mouth of the Amazon. Unlike its slummy counterpart, Kinshasa, at the mouth of the Congo, it’s full of resplendent streets with beautiful nineteenth century houses. It has squares and marketplaces full of cafes, fountains and life.

The large city grew up shipping rubber from the Amazon forest, which begins on its doorstep. This made it wealthy. One can see the beautiful baroque Theatre of Peace, a fluffy pink building where Anna Pavlova danced. On the main square, ornate with pavements of black and white quartz, is the Hotel Grao Para where Xavier Cugat and his orchestra would play and Zsa Zsa Gabor would stop over on her way, by propeller plane, on the slow flight to Rio.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 1995 in a little remembered event Li Ruthuan, a member of the Chinese Politiburo (containing the top seven in the government), made a speech likening the Chinese take-over of Hong Kong to the case of a lady who had agreed to sell a 100-year-old Yi-Xiang teapot that was famous for the taste of the tea it poured.

Unbeknown to her, its quality derived from the residue that had accumulated on the inside of the pot. In her eagerness to prepare the pot for sale she cleaned and polished it. When the purchaser came to try using the pot the tea was dreadful and he demanded his money back.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In her famous decree in 1767 Empress Catherine the Great proclaimed Russia to be a European power. She wanted Russia to be a major player in European politics. She compelled the Europeans to accept Russia as a great power as a condition for doing business. In 1815 Russia was considered an equal in the 1815 Concert of Europe.

In contrast, Imperial China at that time was self-sufficient and inward looking. It basked in its own superior culture. It did not want to open up trade relations with Europe and the emperor questioned the ability of the British who were knocking on the door to “acquire the rudiments” of Chinese civilization.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – If MAD was Mad then the decision of President Donald Trump to renounce the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is MADDER.

MAD is Mutually Assured Destruction, a concept which underlay the nuclear deterrence of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan began the hard work of dismantling MAD with the INF, a treaty affecting the land-based missiles of Europe. It abolished missiles with a range of 500 to 2000 kilometres.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 2010 the signatory states of the International Criminal Court, established to prosecute war crimes, convened a conference to add aggression to the list of crimes the court could try. The U.S., Russia, Iran, China and India have refused to sign up as ICC members and have not welcomed the addition of “aggression”. But fifteen NATO states have. Moreover, Russia wrote its own law into its Criminal Code. It prohibits “Planning, Preparing or Waging an Aggressive War”. It goes further: it prohibits “Public Appeals to Unleash an Aggressive War”. This opens the door to Russian leaders and politicians being prosecuted in domestic courts.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – A sword of Damocles hangs over the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The sword of Netanyahu hangs over Palestine – and Israel. Which will fall first?

A court case approaches. A new election in September approaches. Netanyahu is being accused of a serious crime of corruption. He is fighting not just for his political beliefs but also for his own self-interest. If he wins the election he could seek immunity from prosecution.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Xi Jinping, president of China, remains an enigma. You watched him on television reviewing the dancing in Pyongyang in the company of Kim Jong-un and his face is near to expressionless when in repose. He doesn’t stand like an arrogant man and we recall that time when he went out to eat in a noodle cafe he joined the back of the queue. His face doesn’t look hard, as did Hitler’s or Stalin’s or Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s do today.

]]>jonatpower@aol.com (Jonathan Power)OPINIONTue, 25 Jun 2019 21:37:39 +0200Send in to the Persian Gulf a Flotilla Under the UN Flaghttps://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/syndication/individual-journalists/2763-send-in-to-the-persian-gulf-a-flotilla-under-the-un-flag
https://www.indepthnews.info/index.php/syndication/individual-journalists/2763-send-in-to-the-persian-gulf-a-flotilla-under-the-un-flag

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 1980 in his State of the Union address President Jimmy Carter said: “Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

Dear President Donald Trump: We’ve been here before and it’s as ludicrous this time as it was nearly 40 years ago. Why on earth are you sending in a flotilla of ships and 2,500 troops? Why are you so convinced that the mines that exploded on two oil tankers, neither of which were American, in the Persian Gulf are the work of the Iranians?

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – I’m on the 250 km/hour train hurtling from Moscow to St Petersburg when it suddenly clicks in my mind. My apologies for being so stupid, but despite regular trips to Russia over many years I have only suddenly got it – I too have been brainwashed about Russia by Western politicians, media and authors, like nearly everyone else.

What I noticed in Moscow and what I’ve seen in St Petersburg on previous trips is that, yes, I am, indeed I am, in a normal Western big city environment. Both cities are grand in different ways. St Petersburg, with its museums, palaces, great churches, canals and river, its rich store of art (probably second only to the Louvre) and its musical life (the Marriinsky theatre is the epicenter of world ballet) is arguably the most beautiful and imposing of all the world’s cities.